Quote Originally Posted by holybandit
You know what police force doesnt mess around? The russians. Watching a video where the russians set up a raid on a couple of red mafia drug dealers, they went STRAIGHT down to the ground when they saw the cops coming
Not a good example, given the subject of the thread. Many Russian police will randomly fine perfectly law-abiding people - for say, possessing a loud tie after the hours of darkness. Especially if you look rich or foreign. Unless you look very rich, in which case they'll suspect you're one of the Mafia that pays the rest of their top-ups and start staring into the middle distance and whistling.

I happen to know Professor Fernandez-Armesto in real life, and he is a wonderfully cultured and gentle person of impeccable manners. However, he is quite other-worldly and would no doubt seem like a pompous jerk to a policeman who I suspect is more used to dealing with vulgarity and the anticipation of a violent reaction. The professor may well have appeared as if he was on drugs rather than utterly bewildered.

It seems to me to be a particularly unfortunate clash of cultures from opposite ends of the US/European divide. This appears to be borne out by the wise judgement from the more reflective bench. I think the police over-reacted, but one imagines that on the streets of Atlanta, one wants to be sure a suspect is powerless before unleashes a gun or somesuch.